Teenager With Some Questions About Alcoholism?!

Best Answer - Chosen by Voters

don't smoke

It's hard to read when everything is capitalized.
Anyway...

JUST DON'T DRINK. You don't have to. EVER. While your colleagues drink beer, cocktails and strong drinks, you drink juice.

Actually, it's considered to be normal to be drinking a half-full small glass of wine each day during dinner (it's actually considered good for health). Anything which is more, when consumed regularly, can damage your health. And if you drink once, but a lot, it's very bad.

I mean, you could have a beer or two. Heck, when I go out once or twice in a year, at great parties of some sort, I allow myself to drink more than 2 beers (right up to 4-6 during the whole night). But that's twice a year, and it's high quality Bavarian beer, and I don't mix, and I eat.
If you want good health, you shouldn't ever be doing that what I do. If you don't want to be an alcoholic, never exceed the quantity of 1 beer per day, and never ever go to beer parties more often than once in two months.

And never take strong drinks. There is absolutely no reason to do that. They are yucky. I feel like I wanna vomit in the moment I just smell a strong drink. They have nothing but alcohol. Alcohol is poison. Beer and wine at least have some other substances that are good.

If you never allow yourself to drink a lot, you will never become an alcoholic.

(yeah, too many "never"s and "ever"s)

well, being like your dad sounds like a road that, if you go down, youll end up in an even worse place than you are in now. which will probably really really suck.

First of all darling, every family has an alcoholic or two sprinkled in there. EVERY family. Ive yet to meet a family that was completely free of alcoholic relatives. So dont dwell on that too much.

To me, the biggest problem in your young life right now might be the anxiety and the friends issue. I think that if you set your focus on tackling these issues, everything else would get better too.

Maybe start online (an anonymous way to get used to interacting with people). Google it and see where it goes from there.

Every step in the right direction is a step further away from the wrong one.

chances are your going to grow up to be an alchoholic, but try not to, if you have the will power to choose the other route, the correct route, go for it. try to go to a regular high school, or if you dont go to a college, meet new people, the more friends you make the happier you get, i know it seems hard the general response "make friends?" thats hard? it really is hard, but not when your forced to sit next to someone for hours on end for months straight, then you can create relationships easily, but dont try to make friendships with the oposite sex, thats just in the intrest of sex, make friends with people of the same gender, those friendships last a lifetime, the good ones.

alcoholism is genetic, so don't drink. Save yourself the hangovers and sleeping with ugly women. Your social anxiety isn't going to be helped cramped up inside, you need to get out. Your best bet is to find some hobbies that you like. Youll meet people that do the same and itll help oyu make friends. Don't be depressed man, the sun comes up on you no matter who you are.

I think you should try your best to make a better life for yourself. It will be very easy for you to go down a less than ideal path in life... but its not worth it. Imagine yourself with a good job (im not just talking money... im talking something you WANT to do) in a nice house that makes you happy to come home to, living a nice life - travelling etc having your own family. Then imagine a life just full of drinking... trying to find a few dollars to scrape together to get the cheapest bottle of wine you can buy to feel "better" for a couple of hours... then how bad you will feel when you cant afford to drink because your always drunk so cant keep a job... your body will feel crappy... you will feel crappy and I doubt you will have any happiness in life. Remember there are other ways to feel happy - then drinking to numb any pain. The fact that your asking makes it sound like you want a good life for you self. You should look at getting free counselling. A lot of towns offer this for people in your situation. I think you would really benefit from it.

Important thing is to really think about how you want your life... where you want to be... how you want to be living. Fun job, great friends, great house, feeling healthy. Or..... just being drunk every night...

good luck

don't start drinking or yes you will be

My father and mother were both alcoholics as were some relatives before them, but neither I nor my siblings are even though childhood was challenging. As mentioned, there are alcoholics in almost every family so it's not necessarily something that will happen to you.
Everyone makes choices though so it's best to just know that you might be a little more susceptible to addictions (alcohol AND other things) so kind of check yourself out if you do drink socially later, etc, or just avoid it, especially until you're more stable and happy.

You might really get some understanding, help, and support by going to Al-Anon or Alateen, which are the (free) groups for the relatives and children of alcoholics, run by AA. They probably even have them online.
http://www.al-anon.alateen.org
The no-higher-power, more rational therapies for alcoholism (Rational Recovery and Smart Recovery, for example) may also have groups for families/teens.
https://rational.org/index.php?id=1
http://www.smartrecovery.org/resources/f…

Depression and anxiety are different by themselves.
It's easy to get depressed if you're anxious, and easy to lack friends if you're not around others (and anxious). It's certainly easy to become depressed as a teen.
It would be best if you could talk with a therapist about your anxiety and your depression. There are all kinds of therapists with all kinds of treatments though. You can also find info online about social anxiety and depression, and often tactics for dealing with them:
http://www.google.com/search?q=social+an…
http://www.google.com/search?q=social+an…
http://www.google.com/search?q=depressio…
http://www.google.com/search?q=depressio…

Try to get into things you might enjoy** (see Sources below for links) and try to just get out in general too. One way to do that is to volunteer. People who volunteer are usually very accepting and supportive so you'd be welcomed almost anywhere, and there are many ways and places to volunteer that cover all kinds of situations and topics:
http://www.google.com/search?q=how+to+vo…
You can also volunteer with animals if people are just too much, and animal relationships are really great for everyone anyway.
Theater (school or community theater) people and music/chorus/band people are often quite accepting too...community theaters often welcome volunteers too, for example.

There are also many forums online that are good for situations like yours (or anyone) too because they offer a sense of community and support but without any need for face-to-face immediate chat or looking/acting a certain way. One of those would be the many boards on different topics at Craftster.org--a nice community (you can just read, or comment or ask questions, etc., if you join--free):
http://www.craftster.org/forum (look down on the right for the main forums...each will have many sub-boards under it too)
There are online groups for almost every topic online as well (including groups for those who are home-schooled, those who have social anxiety, etc., etc), and some people even get into interacting with certain people who do YouTube videos, and stuff like that.

Also, be aware that social anxiety usually gets better as people get older. They understand more about the world and how it works, including the fact that *everyone* is underconfident and putting on an "act," and what all is available to them they'd never have known about before, find they have interests and abilities they never thought they had, figure out what kind of people they like and who like them and where to be around them, etc.

HTH, and hang in there!!! It does get better almost always. Just have to hold on.***
Diane B.

*** You may not be gay/etc, but the new site and videos at itgetsbetter.org are relevant and helpful to most everyone who doesn't feel they fit in, are depressed, picked on, etc., etc...and actually, we're all in the situation some of the time:
http://www.itgetsbetter.org (you don't need to take the "pledge" on the splash page, or do it later if you want; just watch some of the videos)

**